On August 10 2011 00:43 theBALLS wrote: Hey lets stick to the issue here, please adhere to the guidelines in the first post.
We should compile a list of points which protoss seems to have no answer to, then try to solve them systematically.
I shall kick it off, do add on valid points should you have them:
1) Lack of a proper harass unit (speed, DPS, cost effectiveness) solution/compromise:
2) Dealing with 1-1-1 marine tank banshee scv all in solution/compromise:
3) Dealing with infestors solution/compromise:
4) Dealing with baneling rain over main army in the course of battles solution/compromise:
5)
Feel free to add on, but only valid points please! Let's keep this thread as flame free as possible.
1) Lack of a proper harass unit (speed, DPS, cost effectiveness) solution/compromise: Give DT energy based blink(when blink is researched). Phoenix moved down to Cybercore. Carriers moved down to stargate
2) Dealing with 1-1-1 marine tank banshee scv all in solution/compromise: Well phoenix is more viable with the suggestion above getting rid of banshee and picking up tanks. Detection from robo.
3) Dealing with infestors solution/compromise: Lower dmg, more energy cost for infested terran . Again phoenix pick up without getting fungled (micro battle with phoenix baiting and etc)
4) Dealing with baneling rain over main army in the course of battles solution/compromise:Don't think this is a big problem. But if needed again - Phoenix
On August 10 2011 00:40 Jesushooves wrote: Read my sig for why protoss are so bad. Seriously, the metagame of protoss is 90% dependent on what MC does...
Unfortunately you're 100% right.
MC started losing to Terrans and everyone else is copying him.
I don't think you guys understand just how drastic patches are. Just slight nerfs/buffs can totally change a matchup and Protoss had a lot since MC was on top. Just to illustrate how drastic small changes make:
Look at infestor. It got a slight buff, and only to armored units, and went from never being used to being the go to unit for many Zerg.
Archon +1 range and massive, very slight, now protoss everywhere is using them.
Unfortunatly nerfs work the same as well and two WG nerfs has crippled protosses ability to pressure FEs.
It's not a "meta game" change but a game change.
Evidently sarcasm is not drastic enough either from me :<
On August 10 2011 00:49 RumbleBadger wrote: I'm not an expert at toss at all (I play zerg) and so take my opinion with a grain of salt.
I do think toss deserves some sort of buff. I dunno what, any suggestions I make would probably totally screw up the game, but a buff that helps them make changes to the metagame. Obviously the infestor buff helped zerg, but there were also many metagame changes in that time period that helped out even more (imo) like Spanishiwa's play style and zergs realizing they can take really fast thirds and be safe.
While we will have to wait to see if Blizz does anything about it, I would like to see some cool innovation. You guys have already thrown around a lot of great ideas, but I remember seeing this video and thinking it was really cool and funny:
I play this opening a lot, on close air. as I have said before. It's good but not great, you have to dump 500 gas early to execute it and sentries do -3 damage. It's cute but not robust. it's hard to defend and expo and invest 400/500 in a drop at the same time. A good player will counterattack when you're in his base and deny your expo and use just a few units to clear up the drop.
Protoss is underpowered comparatively to other races. It has been known for a long time.
Protoss is the easiest to play and abuse but the max cap on protoss is lower than zerg or terran. A's such, the high level Zerg and Terran can play above the protoss cap. This is why protoss don't win big tournaments.
On August 10 2011 01:05 tdt wrote: Why are you guys talking about carriers? lolz 99% of games are over before you can build carriers or BCs. Lets try and stay on topic.
I definitely think it's a metagame thing. There have been new macro builds made (1 gate expand, DT expand, 3 gate expand), but for the most part, Protoss has changed the least out of all 3 races since Beta. Void Ray builds and Stargate openers, while not as strong as they were back then, are still fairly similar because they work. 4 gate has obviously stuck around. TC Blink builds only have minor changes to them since their inception.
I think this is because of two main reasons:
Firstly, something to do with the design of Protoss as compared to Terran or Zerg. Protoss is much less flexible, much more locked into one playstyle once you start. Plus, there are much less harassment options for Protoss unless you go full into harass. Phoenixes, Warp Prisms, and DTs are our harass units. Phoenixes and Prisms are pretty useless in a straight engagement, so if you make them, it's for harass only, for the most part.
MMM drops can be used as harass or as part of a main force. Infestors, Speedlings, and Mutalisks can all be great harass, but also work well in an army composition. Protoss's only fast, mobile unit (Phoenix) doesn't boast the same potential. Stalkers do, but they don't do enough damage to run in, kill a bunch of workers/buildings, then run out again.
Secondly, the "extremeness" of Protoss. All Protoss units are powerful in one regard, but have a major flaw to offset it. Zealots are great DPS and tough, but melee only. Stalkers are mobile and have good range, but don't do the best damage and aren't cost effective. DTs are strong and stealthy, but once the enemy gets detection, they get crushed. Immortals wreck armored ground units, but die to basically anything else, be it Zerglings, Zealots, or anything that flies.
The Colossus is considered a great unit because it's weaknesses can easily be supplemented with good Anti Air. The reason Zealot/Sentry/Stalker works so well in the early game is because they compliment each other very well and make up for each other's weaknesses. However, I don't feel many other Protoss units share this synergy. Voids and Phoenixes work well together in the early game with small numbers, but once ground forces start to grow, they stop working too well.
Looking at these together, the point is this: Protoss, at the moment, lacks a mid-to-late game composition that works well all-around with no glaring weaknesses, and is flexible enough to combat multiple situations. The "death ball" works well in straight confrontations, but can't respond to highly-mobile armies or any sort of efficient army trade. Blink Stalker works ok in most situations, but can fold in head-on engagements against things like MM or Speedling/Infestor.
The only strong new style I've seen so far is mass gateway builds in the late game with darn near every Gateway unit mixed in. It has the flexibility and mobility (at least with Speed Zealots and Stalkers) as well as some straight up fighting force (needs constant upgrades, though). It's only real weakness is big AoE or EMPs.
Still, I feel there is something to be discovered. Maybe a 1-1-1-esque build that gets both a Stargate and Robo bay after the Cyber Core? Maybe more Mothership builds that use the Mothership as a base defense tool to bring armies back in case of counter attack?
On August 10 2011 00:43 theBALLS wrote: Hey lets stick to the issue here, please adhere to the guidelines in the first post.
We should compile a list of points which protoss seems to have no answer to, then try to solve them systematically.
I shall kick it off, do add on valid points should you have them:
1) Lack of a proper harass unit (speed, DPS, cost effectiveness) solution/compromise:
2) Dealing with 1-1-1 marine tank banshee scv all in solution/compromise:
3) Dealing with infestors solution/compromise:
4) Dealing with baneling rain over main army in the course of battles solution/compromise:
5)
Feel free to add on, but only valid points please! Let's keep this thread as flame free as possible.
1) Lack of a proper harass unit (speed, DPS, cost effectiveness) solution/compromise: Give DT energy based blink(when blink is researched). Phoenix moved down to Cybercore. Carriers moved down to stargate
2) Dealing with 1-1-1 marine tank banshee scv all in solution/compromise: Well phoenix is more viable with the suggestion above getting rid of banshee and picking up tanks. Detection from robo.
3) Dealing with infestors solution/compromise: Lower dmg, more energy cost for infested terran . Again phoenix pick up without getting fungled (micro battle with phoenix baiting and etc)
4) Dealing with baneling rain over main army in the course of battles solution/compromise:Don't think this is a big problem. But if needed again - Phoenix
DT blink? You can't be serious. Phoenix made in T1? Nerf infestors, infestors are why zerg isn't dieing to colossi stalker a-move like the first six months of SC2. Learn how to use HT's they're cheaper than infestors and equally as easy to micro.
On August 09 2011 23:06 Crying wrote: Yea but carriers are alot of gas and minerals ,and since we can't defend alot, massing cariers is only avialable in lower leagues,not in masters.And pretty much corruptors and vikings totally shut down carriers in bigger numbers (for the vikings)
Players like Huk and San have gotten carriers before, and they have worked though, so it can work.
Also, carriers are a lot less gas intensive than people may think, because the interceptors cost minerals too
I think using carriers have a lot of problems: 1) T/Z have to build anti-air anyways to counter colossus so it's not game changing to go carriers instead of colossus (compared to how you can indirectly weaken Terran army in BW by forcing Goliaths because every Terran would prefer to go pure tank/vulture, that dynamic does not exist in SC2). 2) When you look at the resources you cant just look at the totals. The build time is huge and during that time you are literally doing nothing with the money so unless you are massively ahead its quite dangerously to tech switch to carriers. 3) As far as I can tell there isnt much you can do to micro carriers. I mean you can't move them back and forth but it's not as rewarding as in BW where you can target fire stuff. I've been experimenting with carriers a lot and most of the time if you target fire something you actually do less damage because of overkill, so its at least as good to just leave carriers by themselves which makes it a shallow unit. 4) Carriers are a strange unit in that 1-2 is very very weak but 4-6 can be dangerously strong so I can see why Blizz might be hesitant to over tweak it.
If its 2), then youre so far ahead that its not like going carriers is the reason for your victory, more youll win with anything as long as you dont suicide your whole army.
I think one of the biggest traps toss players fall into is one of two things.
1) You get overly turtly trying to get up that huge colossus ball, in the mean time your opponent is able to get so greedy that by the time you push out your opponent can endlessly reinforce. This coupled with T and Z having more cost effective compositions against the 200/200 toss ball.
Solution: Find more times you can apply pressure, but do it in a smart way. You 3 gate expand and sack a probe, you see it only gets intercepted near the zerg base by a few zerglings....drop a 4th gate while you have that expand going up and do a push...if the Z starts building units just backup.
2) Protoss who do the opposite of 1 and rely entirely on 1 timing push. You 4 gate, you 6 gate or you 3 gate SG...but you have no long term plan you're whole game relies on this 1 push timing.
Solution: Like in the solution above, rather then go for 1 big push timing, have a long term plan. You can go ok I want to do a 5 gate +1 attack pressure, so do that but maybe don't cut probe production and behave as if you're not going to win the game with that push. If you see you can't do a lot of damage try to contain / save your units, backup and focus back on expanding your economy.
Closing: Above all else always look for those finite timings you can do small push outs while macroing behind it. You could quite possibly win the game during one of those pushes...but you absolutely don't have to, and knowing when you can hit those pushes is paramount to keeping your opponents on the defense rather then offense.
On August 10 2011 01:05 VPGeneralHans wrote: Protoss is underpowered comparatively to other races. It has been known for a long time.
Protoss is the easiest to play and abuse but the max cap on protoss is lower than zerg or terran. A's such, the high level Zerg and Terran can play above the protoss cap. This is why protoss don't win big tournaments.
protoss is the easiest to play but also the worst? so...it's the hardest to win with ergo it's the hardest to play?
On August 10 2011 01:05 VPGeneralHans wrote: Protoss is underpowered comparatively to other races. It has been known for a long time.
Protoss is the easiest to play and abuse but the max cap on protoss is lower than zerg or terran. A's such, the high level Zerg and Terran can play above the protoss cap. This is why protoss don't win big tournaments.
On August 10 2011 01:01 Jesushooves wrote: I've seen a rush to twilight council with a lot of charge zealots and +1 armor being extremely effective. Sure you have to worry about cloak from 1/1/1, but you can always lay down a few cannons. Or just get the robo as well. If you go 1gate expand vs 1/1/1 tank marine allin and add heavy gateway unit count, you should simply be able to overpower the allin with pure zealots and a few stalkers for banshees.
I don't understand the outrage from this, terrans have been losing to 3gate void for ages but I don't recall ever such a huge reaction from the community.
Where has this worked? I would enjoy seeing a replay of this being done versus Bomber, or Polt, or any other Code A or Code S terran please. Btw, if you make cannons to protect your mineral lines versus the cloaked banshees, they cloak their banshees, go and kill all of your anti-air and tons of the rest of your army with their banshees, then instantly win.
Looking at these together, the point is this: Protoss, at the moment, lacks a mid-to-late game composition that works well all-around with no glaring weaknesses, and is flexible enough to combat multiple situations. The "death ball" works well in straight confrontations, but can't respond to highly-mobile armies or any sort of efficient army trade. Blink Stalker works ok in most situations, but can fold in head-on engagements against things like MM or Speedling/Infestor.
You're asking for an unbeatable army. Mech is a great example, immobile yet so powerful. Ling, infestor highly mobile though fragile as hell. There's trade offs with every composition.
If you notice, terran is able to tech up to starport super easily, almost impossible to punish. And with a starport up, they have basically ALL of their tech! How many main buildings did they build? rax, fact, starport= 3!!!! If toss builds gate, core that's 2. Now they have to choose between 3 tech paths instead of just building one more thing and having everything. This is the flexibility of terran.
Now obviously I don't want the races to be the same. I would much rather have toss have these 3 tech paths and just make their base units stronger, like they were in BW, to make up for having such inflexible tech. Right now their base units are not as cost effective as terran's, and once they finally tech to one of their 3 paths to get units that are cost effective, terran has ALL their own tech and can make the counter unit.
On August 10 2011 01:01 Jesushooves wrote: I've seen a rush to twilight council with a lot of charge zealots and +1 armor being extremely effective. Sure you have to worry about cloak from 1/1/1, but you can always lay down a few cannons. Or just get the robo as well. If you go 1gate expand vs 1/1/1 tank marine allin and add heavy gateway unit count, you should simply be able to overpower the allin with pure zealots and a few stalkers for banshees.
I don't understand the outrage from this, terrans have been losing to 3gate void for ages but I don't recall ever such a huge reaction from the community.
Pretty much this. +1 armor timing attacks should be able to twart 1/1/1 allins with proper micro Zealots are so damn strong early game, their only problem is being kited by rauders, but LOLFORCEFIELDS and bam, I dominate you with Zealots and Sentries. Also I wonder why no one though of getting a WP to drop Zeals on tanks. Marines will either have to stick by the tanks or attack the front. Win-win situation for P. Duh. Get a WP while getting the Robo Bay, when it finishes you get the Col, then assuming you dont mess up your micro you should have enough tools to outplay your oponent
EPT
